Late Friday night, the Government started the formal process for retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies sued by EFF and others for their involvement in the warrantless surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans. The immunity is a key part of the unconstitutional FISA Amendments Act passed by Congress in July.

Last night, someone apparently obtained access to the Yahoo! email account of Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice President. Screenshots of Gov. Palin's email account are now widely available on the sites such as Wikileaks and Gawker.

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit returned the Hepting v. AT&T case to the District Court. In a two sentence order, the court wrote:
In light of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-261, we remand this case to the district court. We retain jurisdiction over any further appeals.

Today, Judge George O'Toole lifted the gag order on three MIT students who were sued by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority for discovering a security vulnerability in the MBTA's fare payment system. The Court found that the MBTA was not likely to prevail on the merits of its claim under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Today, Richard Sullivan, a Sergeant Detective in the Transit Police of the Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority (and the liaison to the FBI), filed a Supplemental Declaration. In his declaration, Det. Sullivan said: